Day 10: Gold Dredge 8 tour, auto museum, and downtown Fairbanks

Alaska, of course, is synonymous to Gold Rush - Klondike, all of that - and we've been getting insistent questions from one of our friends, in particular (I am not naming names or pointing fingers :) ) - like, what about the gold, "haven't you found any gold yet"? He thought he was joking... or maybe he thought I was joking when I responded that that's planned for the last day. 

Anyway, he was wrong, because I was deadly serious.

Gold Dredge 8 tour is an actual 2-hour tour that takes you to an old gold mine and lets you pan for gold. It is a very nice tour, I highly recommend it!

First, at a viewpoint of Alyeska Pipeline, we got a talk about its history, design, and maintenance features. They clean it with pigs! (Dumb pigs, too... these are just for cleaning, they also have smart pigs to inspect the inside of the pipeline and report back.)

Then we took a train out to the dredge. 

There, everyone got a pan and a bag of dirt. You dump the dirt in the pan and start washing it out - it is hard work! 

We ended up with a few grains of gold each. 

At the end, you get your gold weighted - ours was worth $21 combined - we could have sold it back to the company, but instead opted to pay another $20 to put it all in a (very small) locket. 

Then we had lunch at Pike's Landing - got the same cocktail, but Alik opted for "large"...

With time to spare before our flight, we went to the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum - we liked it very much! They have tons of interesting autos - out of which I am posting just a few... 

And then, with more time to spare, we explored Downtown Fairbanks. Our last day in Alaska was gorgeous - nice and sunny, almost 70 F! We walked by the river and discovered a few interesting monuments (also a sign "No overnight camping" - which, wouldn't you agree, is not something usually found in a downtown).

We finished the day back at Pike's Landing, sitting on the deck by the river with our (normal-sized) drinks, watching the University of Alaska team practice water rescue repeatedly - it was fun to watch! - and looking at the "Love Alaska" sign... Yes, we love Alaska and she loves us right back!